Steelers End Playoff Drought by Simply Taking Care of Business vs. Chiefs

The Pittsburgh Steelers, as part of a crowded AFC playoff field, needed a win at home Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs. And a win they got—a 20-12 defeat of a Chiefs team that couldn't score a touchdown. For the first time since 2011, the Steelers have clinched a postseason berth.

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The Steelers offense has most often been the key to victory this season, but this time, the defense stepped up. While it gave up a few big passing plays—including a long of 33 yards to Albert Wilson—it held venerable Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles to just 29 rushing yards on his nine attempts, and the Chiefs went 0-of-4 in the red zone.

Pittsburgh's secondary has been a big liability this season, especially with a weak pass rush giving it little help. But that pass rush stepped up Sunday, with the Steelers sacking Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith six times and hitting him a total of eight times. That same front seven also recorded seven tackles for loss, a major reason why Charles was so well-contained.

The Steelers certainly needed the defense to step up this week. Kansas City's defense did a good job against Pittsburgh's offense, holding Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger to one touchdown pass, keeping all receivers under 100 yards on the day and allowing only 63 rushing yards to running back Le'Veon Bell.

However, Bell did have a one-yard rushing touchdown that earned the Steelers a four-point second-quarter lead, one they did not relinquish for the remainder of the game. Antonio Brown also had a touchdown in the third quarter and extended his streak of games with at least five catches and 50 yards to 31. He had seven catches on nine targets for 72 yards Sunday.

As head coach Mike Tomlin pointed out, via Pittsburgh Sports' Dejan Kovacevic, "the spirit of the defense" was in full force on Sunday.

This is what comes to mind when you think "Steelers defense:" pressure on quarterbacks, bend-but-don't-break between the 20s and a stout performance in the red zone.

It was all about the defensive ends and outside linebackers. They accounted for all six sacks and all but one of the team's tackles for loss. Right outside linebacker James Harrison (who played nearly the entirety of the game, according to ESPN's Scott Brown) had 1.5 sacks. Fellow outside linebacker Jason Worilds had two. Defensive ends Stephon Tuitt and Cameron Heyward combined for 2.5 sacks. 

For a team that has at times fallen flat in situations like this, the Steelers took care of business. While the Chiefs offense is anything but formidable, holding it to four field goals in the red zone is a great improvement for a defense that had been giving up red-zone touchdowns 58.14 percent of the time.

The emergence of the pass rush and run defense—which forced a Charles fumble that led to Brown's touchdown—couldn't have happened at a better time. The Steelers host the Cincinnati Bengals next Sunday for control of the AFC North and will see formidable passing offenses and run games in the postseason, such as the Denver Broncos' and New England Patriots'. 

If this game is a sign of what's to come for the Steelers in the playoffs, the opportunity to make a deep run is there.

We've seen what the team is capable of on offense this season, with Le'Veon Bell being the Steelers' yards-from-scrimmage leader, Brown being the league's top wide receiver and Roethlisberger having the best season of his career.

But now that the defense has put enough together to harass quarterbacks and stop the run, the longstanding issues in the secondary could be minimized. Though it's just one game where both sides of the ball held up their respective ends of the bargain, the timing was perfect.

Now, the Steelers are one win—and a few other teams' wins and losses—away from potentially being the AFC's second seed in the postseason. And if that doesn't happen, they are one win away from a divisional title and a home playoff game. At the very least, the Steelers are guaranteed to play January football, something that had eluded them in their last two seasons, which ended in 8-8 records.

Soon, it will be like a new season for the Steelers once the playoffs begin. If this is the new-look Steelers who will be heading into January, then there's no need to write them off as the team that lost in the regular season to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New York Jets and New Orleans Saints.

No, this is the Steelers team that recorded six sacks, scored both a rushing and receiving touchdown and held an offense to mere field goals in each of its red-zone attempts. That sounds like a playoff team. And a playoff team is just what the Steelers are after Sunday's win.